I've often wondered how Blackberry managed to stay below everyone's radar, and off of the wanna be hit lists. After all, when you look at the usual pundits... Apple, Bose, Monster Cable, MicroSoft... They are all heavy weights in their field, thus everyone takes a jab at them (bigger you are, the easier the target). But for the most part, even though Blackberry dominates the smart phone market, most people (even iPhone users) don't bag on Blackberry very much.

Not that I mind at all, since I've used Blackberry's for years now, I just never understood how I got away with it for so long. I really thought once Blackberry made the mistake of taking on the iPhone head on with the Storm, and lost miserably (too thick, too slow & no improvements over the iPhone if that's your thing) that they would receive a lashing. But nothing really became of it. Blackberry users continued to be Blackberry users, iPhone users continued to be iPhone users almost as if the showdown never even happened.

Which in today's day and age is just a little bit... odd?

BB is a *MAJOR* player in corporations. We probably have about 100,000 units deploy just in my company! For corporate email/calendar/Exchange support, NO ONE even comes close to BB. Not to mention their incredibly useful keyboards.

I **LOVED** my Palm Pilot because it was ***SO*** useful to me. I love my Droid because it's a fun device to have.But for work email, noting even comes close to BB. Oh yeah, I love my Kindle, but I can't imagine getting an IPad for now. It's too bulky as an ebook reader, and it's too annoying to use a mobile PC. And it's too bulky to play games on like ITouch. I was -> <- close to buying an ITouch (mostly to pass the time and play games) until the Droid came out. As an early adopter, I'm usually the kind of person who would snatch up Iphones, and Ipads. But the forced AT&T service was a deal breaker for me and IPad just wasn't useful to me.

In the personal market, I would agree that BB is not a major player. One interesting thing I've noticed. BB seems to be taking off in the urban market (around NYC that is). I thought that was kind of interesting.

By the way, I read the review and agree with it totally. With the v3 amps, these things are monsters. I can feel the air pressure from the back row. The only thing I disagree with is when they say that you need a big room for them. 2 EP800s in a smaller room (16x18) is AWESOME!